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Weaponized Pseudoscience...

TeachTheFacts.org

I've used this photo on a previous post. However, we're in the aftermath of "created realities," and I fear this self-willed ignorance of science is slowly unraveling our nation.

Weaponize (n): to adapt for use as a weapon of war; first known use of Weaponize: 1957 (Merriam-Webster)



A pseudoscience is a belief or process which masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy which it would not otherwise be able to achieve on its own terms; it is often known as fringe- or alternative science. The most important of its defects is usually the lack of the carefully controlled and thoughtfully interpreted experiments which provide the foundation of the natural sciences and which contribute to their advancement.



Reference: Pseudoscience: What is it? How can I recognize it?

In "Ode to a Distant Prospect of Eton College," Thomas Gray says a great many things that if you can decipher the old English and British countryside references, (the Thames is mentioned twice), the beginning is essentially the plot of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

The ending is the origin of "ignorance is bliss":

Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

The blissful ignorance is their eventual fate with entropy: aging with associated pains and eventual demise. Ignorance is not a way to run a republic.

Yet lately, I've seen ignorance forged into the weapon of pseudoscience on the anvil of suspicion, anger, rage, huckster-foisted conspiracy theories, division and racial animus.

Bill O'Reilly tried an "old shtick" (quoting Joan Walsh, see Salon link) with basketball coach John Calipari: “I mean, you are a good guy, coach, but, hey, now the culture has coarsened,” said O’Reilly. “I don’t know if you listen to this rap stuff and the hip-hop stuff. Has that changed their attitude? I mean, how do you impose discipline on kids who are pretty much gonna do what they want to do?” (Salon.com) Coach was there to discuss his book; O'Reilly was riling up his base of older, whiter viewers that feel their country slipping away in a deluge of demographics and diversity. If the big-O and the fogies stopped and did the math, most won't be around in 2042 when it does occur. The question is, will the country still be?

Cliven Bundy hasn't paid his cattle grazing fees in 21 years, or $1.2 million dollars of tax payer money. He's lost every court case he's tried to defend himself, saying he doesn't "recognize the sovereignty of the federal government." He just uses their/our land; their/our roads to get his product to market; their/our electricity; their/our power; their/our computer systems to balance his books, in essence: Cliven Bundy is a "taker" supported by the echo chamber that birthed the Tea Party April 15, 2009.

Frazier Glenn Miller, 73, founder of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan murdered three fellow humans opening fire outside a Jewish Community Center and a nearby retirement community. He managed to kill two Methodists: a doctor and his fourteen-year-old grandson and a woman visiting her aged mother.


Tomorrow: "A Nation of Warring Tribes"

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I am offering a special rate for all authors this weekend, with an added discount for all steampunk genres.

I wish to incorporate more punk in my portfolio.  I have a good bit of fantasy, and a sprinkling of sci-fi, but I want more period and 'Punk' inspired pieces. Not just steampunk, but cyberpunk, dieselpunk, clockwork punk, and all of the sub-genres often grouped with steampunk.

It's a dilemma because many authors won't hire me if they think I can't successfully portray this amazing genre, and all of it's sub-genres, only because there are so few, if any, in my folio.




Since I can't justify taking time away from paid projects to just build my folio, I am offering an automatic 30% off, on top of all of my regular discount incentives to authors specializing in punk.

Along side punk, I also need more ethnic diversity (which will get you an added discount), so why not combine the two needs into some great book cover art at a great discount?

While looking at my VidFolio, keep in mind that I am painfully aware that very little of it could be interpreted as punk.

If you have a project in mind,  let's talk about your book cover needs via Live Chat on my website, so we don't need to stress over that little window below, lol.



Onto wrapping up the next book :D

Until next time ...


This post edited by*:


*Blurbs and quotes provided are not edited by WillowRaven, but posted as provided by author/publisher.
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Micro Robotics...

Building big: A team of three small, magnetically steered robots worked together to build this structure from toothpick-sized carbon rods.

Someone glancing through the door of Annjoe Wong-Foy’s lab at SRI International might think his equipment is infested by ants. Dark shapes about a centimeter across move to and fro over elevated walkways: they weave around obstacles and carry small sticks.



A closer look makes it clear that these busy critters are in fact man-made. Wong-Foy, a senior research engineer at SRI, has built an army of magnetically steered workers to test the idea that “microrobots” could be a better way to assemble electronics components, or to build other small structures.



Wong-Foy’s robotic workers have already proved capable of building towers 30 centimeters (two feet) long from carbon rods, and other platforms able to support a kilogram of weight. The robots can work with glass, metal, wood, and electronic components. In one demonstration, they made a carbon truss structure with wires and colored LEDs mixed in to serve as the lab’s Christmas tree.



“We can scale to many more robots at low cost,” says Wong-Foy, who thinks his system could develop into a new approach to manufacturing. Many electronic components are the right size to be handled by his microrobots, he says, and teams of them might prove a good way to lay them out onto circuit boards.



MIT Technology Review:

Tiny robots that work together like ants could lead to a new way to manufacture complex structures and electronics, by Tom Simonite
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Proto Tony Stark...

Robot suit: An exoskeleton on display in Brazil is designed to be worn, and controlled, by a paralyzed person.

I cautiously wish him good luck...



In less than 60 days, Brazil will begin hosting soccer’s 2014 World Cup, even though workers are still hurrying to pour concrete at three unfinished stadiums. At a laboratory in São Paulo, a Duke University neuroscientist is in his own race with the World Cup clock. He is rushing to finish work on a mind-controlled exoskeleton that he says a paralyzed Brazilian volunteer will don, navigate across a soccer pitch using his or her thoughts, and use to make the ceremonial opening kick of the tournament on June 12.



The project, called Walk Again, is led by Miguel Nicolelis, a 53-year-old native of Brazil and one of the biggest names in neuroscience. If it goes as planned, the kick will be a highly public display of research into brain-machine interfaces, a technology that aims to help paralyzed people control machines with their thoughts and restore their ability to get around.



But the Walk Again project is drawing doubters. Saying the demonstration is as much publicity stunt as science, they question whether it will illustrate any real degree of thought control. That’s because it relies on a fairly old, imprecise brain-recording technology called EEG, or electroencephalography.



At least three other research groups have recently published reports of EEG-controlled exoskeletons. Yet so far, none have managed to do much more than send a start or stop signal. They let the robotic harness do the rest of the work on a preset trajectory, with plenty of outside assistance in balancing.



MIT Technology Review:
World Cup Mind-Control Demo Faces Deadlines, Critics
A Brazilian neuroscientist says brain-controlled robotics will let the paralyzed walk again. By Antonio Regalado

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words

Words, I swear to god the trouble they've caused. I awake every morning with questions that torment me. The who, why, how, when of everything unanswered. They taught me to read and write but were more interested in content and context, what I read or didn't read. They taught me to recognize what the marks on paper meant, actually it was an initiation into the foolishness of words. Starting with children's books I learned to open my mind to the foolishness to come. I didn't know words could lie so unashamedly. Behind the mask of ego and motive, like a magicians slight of hand, the amusing joke, I'm doubled-over in laughter while going to my slaughter. Words can kill, damn, I thought words were innocent, some fool said "if".

Words are coined for schools of thought. The more immersed in the school the more serious the words. For a truth, I tell you this surely must be the truth because I so thoroughly believe it to be true. Others from the first written to the contemporary have verified it to be so and all other words are incarnations of evil set to confuse or destroy the believers of the truth. Why isn't the truth itself is destroyed, why the believers of the truth are destroyed? It is because words for and against must occupy the same space. We don't care about the question in question, we care about the words. Oh, how we revere words.

Words are a formula expressed to convey and communicate to others but in the fact that a person can communicate one thing and think another, words are highly suspect. The alien with a big zipper on his forehead, unzipped to reveal a big honking eye, his jaw automatically locked, the full spectrum of his data stream into my mind and I knew his intent, motive and reason, not a word was spoken. I felt like god had descended and swept away years of nonsense, the years of interpretive equations for every occasion and defensive quips to hide my fears. Oh the elation of pure knowledge that stopped all the human foolishness that has enveloped me. I am sure I must tell others.

Words, just words, like other words. My cousin James was abducted by aliens, he said. Oh, they had something about that on TV the other night. What you been smok'n mon? I am a _______________ and we don't believe in that, if you read the _____________you'd know god's word. God's got a mouth now, has lips, speaks words. His words, even if you repeat them are powerful words.

The mind is powerful in how it perceives and believes, conceives and receives, can also deceive and be deceived. Words themselves are the power. They strike the mind through the eye ports, the ear port, the mouth port. Thus we are mostly blind, deaf and dumb by reason of all the words we are bombarded with and the constructs of their definitions we exist in.

He's well read, is a man of letters, has a way with words, is a word mister, a word smith, is a walking lexicon and a con-artist. He is who said it first, coined the word, defined the word and redefined the expression. It's all about the words. Words are the real weapon. Like in Star Wars and every street fight, you play the dozens, can't settle it, then break out the fisticuffs or light sabers or guns. I see we can't settle this with our knowledge of the force (words), have to use the elegant weapons of a more civil time, bashing with stones, swords, throwing bullets, arrows, rockets, packets of erroneous data and viruses, sanctions, all the other things we do to each other because our words have less power that another's words. And it is because our words do not match our reasons and motives. The same is true for both sides. How in the heck can we move forward if our words were true? Both sides ask the same question. On this planet, words are the problem.

A picture speaks a thousand words. We should all be artist. There would be less need to speak. Oh, I forgot, we don't see eye to eye either.

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Translocation of Nanoparticles...

Left: Snapshot of the simulation system. The (20, 20) type carbon nanotube (CNT) combined with two graphite sheets (cyan) solved in a periodic water box represents a nanometre water channel, and a polymer-functionalized nanoparticle (NP) is driven through it by an external electric field.
Right: The NP structures with different polymer length and number, and the polymer terminal is charged (green).

As carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are excellent water transporters, the researchers use all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to study the translocation of charged NPs through a fluidic CNT. A series of simulations are conducted for NPs with different polymer length, polymer number, charge amount and charge position. With the increase in polymer length, the NP flux decreases as a whole due to the increase in NP size. The negatively charged NP translocation fails at the smallest polymer length because of the strong binding of Na+.



Nanotech Web: Determining the translocation of nanoparticles

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Problems and Solutions...


Ahem: #9 is kind of big, so be careful!

Source: Physics Database (10 Free Physics Problem Books)

Direct link to books:

  1. Problems and Solutions in Elementary Physics
  2. Review Problems for Introductory Physics
  3. 1000 Solved Problems in Modern Physics
  4. Problems and Solutions in Statistical Physics
  5. International Physics Olympiad Problems and Solutions
  6. Problems in General Physics
  7. Mechanics Revision: Problems and Solutions
  8. Problems and Solutions: Statistical Physics of Particles
  9. Quantum Mechanics: Problems and Solutions
  10. Problems and Solutions on Solid State Physics, Relativity and Miscellaneous Topics
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Single-Atom Gates...

Quantum computers could benefit from the latest breakthrough in atomic physics. (Courtesy: Shutterstock)

A quantum-information analogue of the transistor has been unveiled by two independent groups in Germany and the US. Both devices comprise a single atom that can switch the quantum state of a single photon. The results are a major step towards the development of practical quantum computers.



Unlike conventional computers, which store bits of information in definite values of 0 or 1, quantum computers store information in qubits, which are a superposition of both values. When qubits are entangled, any change in one immediately affects changes in the others. Qubits can therefore work in unison to solve certain complex problems much faster than their classical counterparts.



Qubits can be created from either light or matter, but many researchers believe that the practical quantum computers of the future will have to rely on interactions between both. Unfortunately, light tends only to interact with matter when the light is very intense and the matter is very dense. To make a single photon and a single atom interact is a challenge because the two are much more likely to pass straight through each other.



Physics World: Single-atom gates open the door to quantum computing

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Gravitational Waves Mystery May Be Solved Using Powerful Lasers

The ripples from violent cosmic collisions can be felt far across the universe, and thanks to a new, sensitive detector expected to start collecting data next year, scientists might be able to see evidence of those gravitational waves from Earth for the first time.

When two neutron stars (remnants of supernova explosions) merge or when a black hole merges with a neutron star, the reverberations of the merger can extend throughout the cosmos. Light, however, only tells us so much. To learn more about the mass and motion of the collision, astronomers want to use gravitational waves, ripples in space-time created during these massive crashes.

Next year, astrophysicists are set to switch on one of the most sensitive gravitational-wave detectors ever created. The observatory is called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO, for short). It originally had six observing runs between 2004 and 2010, and has been offline for half a decade to make upgrades. The return, its backers say, will be worth it. [Photos: Hunting Gravitational Waves with LIGO]

"It opens us up to [viewing] a larger number of astrophysical events," said David Reitze, the LIGO Laboratory's principal investigator and director. One improvement will be better sensitivity in lower frequencies, which will let astronomers look for black holes of between 100 and 500 times the mass of the sun if they exist.

A new documentary about LIGO, titled "LIGO, A Passion for Understanding," is set to premiere on Space.com April 15. You can watch it on Space.com or directly from the filmmaker Kai Staats here: http://www.kaistaats.com/film/ligo/.

From the Big Bang to big star explosions

Gravitational waves hit the headlines in March when the scientific instrument BICEP2 (short for Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) found the first direct evidence of cosmic inflation, or the huge expansion of the cosmos that happened shortly after the Big Bang.

LIGO, however, searches for waves at higher frequencies, in the 10 hertz to 10 kilohertz band. The primordial waves discovered by BICEP2, Reitze said, are 20 orders of magnitude lower in frequency.

While LIGO was not really designed to look for primordial waves, scientists did search for them. Researchers described what was then the most accurate upper limit on the primary gravitational- wave background in high frequencies. The results were published in a 2009 issue of the journal Nature in 2009 (and have since been superseded by BICEP2, Reitze said.)

Another prominent result came when scientists measured how round pulsars — super-dense, tiny, spinning remnants of supernovas — are by tracking asymmetries on their surfaces. "If it has a bump and the bump is big enough, it will generate a gravitational wave," Reitze said.

Measurements of the Crab Nebula's pulsar by LIGO yielded no "mountains" higher than one meter (3.4 feet). "Certain pulsars, are even better, with less than a millimeter high," Reitze added.

Stopping for trains and earthquakes

LIGO originally consisted of two interferometers (telescope receivers that work together) at Hanford (near Richland, Wash.) and one in Livingston, La. The $205 million advanced LIGO has one interferometer in each location, with the third one going somewhere off continent — likely India. The government there is calling this project "one of the hallmark science detectors," Reitze said, and site evaluation is underway.

Wherever the interferometer goes, it has to be a region that is not too prone to earthquakes, lest the sensor get mixed up. Despite advanced stabilization technology, shaking does happen. "And we monitor the shaking to make sure it doesn't corrupt the data," Reitze said. [Watch the trailer for "LIGO, A Passion for Understanding"]

There's a procedure at Hanford and Livingston to stop science work when earthquakes occur. Observations at Livingston also must stop temporarily if a 50-car cargo train rumbles by on a track about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) away.

"There are automatic protocols (using sensors and software) which monitor earthquakes and take the interferometers out of 'science mode' during seismic disturbances from earthquakes," Reitze said.

Each interferometer works by injecting a laser into a vacuum system, which splits the beam in half to put the resulting beams at right angles to each other. Each beam goes to mirrors about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away, which reflect back.

The gravitational waves cause tiny but measurable distortions in the laser beams that cause a "changing interference pattern" in the photosensors that read the laser reflections, Reitze said. "In comparative scale, if you take the nucleus of an atom and take its diameter and divide that by 10,000, that's the type of a distance change we're looking at."

LIGO's capabilities will be 10 times more sensitive than before in searching for binary neutron star mergers, and it will be better able to pick up on many other cosmic phenomena as well – such as black holes and supernovas. The principal funder was the National Science Foundation, and the California Institute of Technology leads laboratory operations.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Universal Greetings to everyone on this site:

I watched the brother's rant just now, and my first issue is "Why does it sound like he is stuck on discussing what Hollywood isn't doing and on certain Black characters from the mainstream comics industry?" This topic goes around in circles every day, month, year, whatever. I've been on different sites and I see and read about this same issue. I've made it plain when I respond to these posts: I do not care what Hollywood is or is not doing with their Black characters! I mean c'mon, its been obvious since the beginning of the American film industry in this country that they do not nor have they ever cared about our culture.

We need to do for self as the great Marcus Garvey kept on emphazising during his time in the early 1900s, and we had our own small, yet creative "Black Hollywood" in those times (and I'm talking about more than the great Oscar Micheaux). We already have a large group of Black superheroes of African culture, science fiction, etc. that we can research and get together to collaborate on to produce them.  I don't care if it comes out on NetFlix streaming service, straight to DVD, Video on Demand (VOD), whatever format would be viable for folks to view it. You want the best deliverable format with the lowest cost of distribution so that you are not overextending your overall budget.  Go to the (small, yet entertaining) various Black comic conventions in this country and meet the creators, talk about their characters, and other future projects or ideas with them.

I am tired of reading posts about only Luke Cage, Black Panther, Storm, etc. My second issue is why do we have to dream cast the same person (s) for a role (I.e. Michael Jai White as either the Black Panther or Luke Cage)? He is not the only male Black actor out there, people! What about Morris Chestnut or Henry Simmons? We have more than Zoe Saldana to act as a comic book-based character, right? It seems to me that television gives more interesting role choices than film is doing. ECBACC, Black Age in Chicago, Motor City in Detroit, etc. are great places to discover our characters and creators. I have a friend and creative partner based in Los Angeles, and for example, he would love to do a massive possibly animated film featuring if not all but those who are willing to contribute based on using the Black Superhero Montage characters. Now wouldn't that be something spectacular? Now maybe folks who are stuck on Hollywood would shut the hell up finally?

It takes a lot of people, a whole lot of money, a definite whole lot of commitment to do for self. Lets stop complaining, stop bringing up racism as a blockade, stop dream casting, lets get off our collective asses and go learn whatever skills we need to have to make these projects become reality. To be continued...

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A little under a year ago, I started a side projected called Bad Girl Confidence to showcase a collection of aspiring creatives that I knew. Creatives such as writers, designers, comic book writers, artist, musicians, & entrepreneurs who needed exposure for their work but lacked the resources to drum up support for their work. Find out more here: www.badgirlconfidence.com

This platform is now growing into an online magazine and we will going into print as a result. We will be bringing the website and print magazine at the Northside Festival in June. The print magazine is going to include a variety of artist, all but one are people of color from around the world. There are illustrators, video game designers, graphic artists, fine art creators, and more. If you would like to help us make this magazine a reality, please pledge here: http://igg.me/at/bgcmagazine

Your pledge could earn you a copy of digital and/or print magazine. I am really excited because this is the first step in showing the world the emerging talents coming out from our communities. My main focus is on people of color but I engaged in the spirit of encourage talent full stop! This magazine is here to bring a different perspective and balance the skewed media conversation about what beauty and talent looks like!

Thank you for your help! :)

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The Beggar's Bowl - New Cover

I will be revealing the new cover for The Beggar's Bowl on May 21. This short of mine has been free for a few years now and I know it hasn't gotten as many downloads as 30 Minute Plan because the cover is just awful. I'd made it myself. But now it has an honest-to-goodness nice cover and I will be revealing it next month in anticipation of the release of Axe to the Face. TBB will also include an exclusive excerpt of the novella.

Don't forget to download a copy of Where the Monsters Are or join the giveaway over at Brutal Books!

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Blacks in Technology Podcast-Techy folks

I listened to this podcast a few times and found it very cool to hear. This is where coders, tech experts, and entreprenuers, authors, engineers, etc get on and talk about their experience in the field.

<iframe src="//www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?autoplay=false&episode_id=4321207" style="width: 100%; height: 131px; min-width: 400px;" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

LINK: http://www.spreaker.com/user/blacksintechnology/bittechtalk-ep-53-w-kelsey-hightower?error=access_denied&error_code=200&error_description=Permissions+error&error_reason=user_denied#_=_

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Pest Problems...



A security bug uncovered this week affects an estimated two-thirds of websites and has Internet users scrambling to understand the problem and update their online passwords. But many systems vulnerable to the flaw are out of public view and are unlikely to get fixed.



OpenSSL, in which the bug, known as Heartbleed, was found, is widely used in software that connects devices in homes, offices, and industrial settings to the Internet. The Heartbleed flaw could live on for years in devices like networking hardware, home automation systems, and even critical industrial-control systems, because they are infrequently updated.



Network-connected devices often run a basic Web server to let an administrator access online control panels. In many cases, these servers are secured using OpenSSL and their software will need updating, says Philip Lieberman, president of security company Lieberman Software. However, this is unlikely to be a priority. “The manufacturers of these devices will not release patches for the vast majority of their devices, and consumers will patch an insignificant number of devices.”



Cable boxes and home Internet routers are just two of the major classes of devices likely to be affected, says Lieberman. “ISPs now have millions of these devices with this bug in them,” he says.



MIT Technology Review:
Widespread Bug Will Linger On in Unpatched Devices
Money.CNN.com: Heartbleed bug: What you need to know

LA Times: 'Heartbleed' bug could undermine years of work to build public trust

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all of that or nothing at all

In college I was introduced to the utopian novel, heard much of hippie communes and investigated several religions and such, ultimately getting stuck in one. The weird thing is that for every serious group, there is a vocabulary. That group of words dictates the context of the reality of that group. Outsiders are separated by not knowing the language and/or not participating in the fellowship using that language. What I mean is you have experiences (mostly normal human experiences) and you describe them in the language of the group. The end effect is that you must use the appropriate language with the appropriate group. Mixing groups and languages is for dissing or promoting the one group to the other group.

Now if you spend any length of time in a focus, using a particular language and describe your world through the defines taught to you, you will find your being has been altered accordingly. Take my word for it, when a startling change comes, it is a struggle to deal with it internally.

The one who knows this experience is the traveller. If you've been to another nation where the culture and language is foreign then you have the alien experience. Now let's shift gears and change realities. Now you know very little experientially. You hope if you go through this door you can come back through. Then can you describe what you experience to yourself because you sure as shoot'n will have a hard time describing it to others.

I haven't been there yet, but I sense it in the back ground, where the times and names mean nothing. I wonder if my sense organs and brain are giving me all that is or a narrow spectrum. I heard one say if I rub my hands together, I am ramping up my chi. I don't want to waste energy, I do want to see energy fly from my hands, not just assume. Power of life, what a thought and yet I've been taught not to consider it or develop it. Power of mind, beyond the meanings in words I've been taught, beyond the reality I learned to sense. OR is what is exactly what it is? Perhaps it is imagination after all.

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Ibn al-Haytham...

Ibn al-Haytham. (Image by Guérin nicolas, GFDL)


Post inspired by COSMOS episode this past Sunday (full episode at link).


al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham


The Arabian physicist, astronomer, and mathematician al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (ca. 966-1039), or Alhazen, established the theory of vision that prevailed till the 17th century. He also defended a theory of the physical reality of Ptolemy's planetary models.



Al-Hasan was born at Basra in southern Iraq, where he must have received all his education. He gained sufficient fame for his knowledge of physics in his youth that he was called to Egypt by the Fatimid ruler al-Hakim to attempt to regulate the flow of the Nile. Failing in this effort, he was disgraced and established himself as a copyist of mathematical manuscripts; there still exists in Istanbul a manuscript of the Banu Musa's version of Apollonius's Conics copied by him in 1024. He continued to practice the scribal art in Cairo for the remainder of his life.




He did not cease to pursue his scientific studies, however, and published a large number of highly original works. He produced two catalogs of his own work, which are preserved by Ibn abi Usaybia. The first of these, compiled in 1027, comprises 25 books on mathematics and 44 on physics and metaphysics, including On the Structure of the World. The second, supplementary catalog was complied in 1028.




Al-Hasan's greatest scientific achievements were in the field of optics. In the discussion of the nature of vision at the beginning of Optics, he argues that light physically affects the eye, citing the pain experienced by looking directly at the Sun and the afterimage experienced by staring at fire and then looking into a weakly illuminated place. From this he argues that the assumption of emission of visual rays from the eye utilized by mathematical opticians, though convenient for their geometric analysis, must be physically wrong. Light rays rather proceed from the visible object to the eye and are always accompanied by color.

 

"al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham.Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 9 Apr. 2014<http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Islam Wikia: Ibn al-Haytham
Wikipedia: History of the Scientific Method/Ibin al-Haytham

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The Opposition of Mars...


There are two dates of special significance:



April 8th (TODAY) is the date of opposition, when Mars, Earth, and the sun are arranged in a nearly-straight line.


If the orbits of Mars and Earth were perfectly circular, April 8th would also be the date of closest approach. However, planetary orbits are elliptical--that is, slightly egg-shaped--so the actual date of closest approach doesn't come until almost a week later.



On April 14th, Earth and Mars are at their minimum distance: 92 million km, a 6+ month flight for NASA's speediest rockets. You won't have any trouble finding Mars on this night. The full Moon will be gliding by the Red Planet in the constellation Virgo, providing a can't-miss "landmark" in the midnight sky.


Remarkably, on the same night that Mars is closest to Earth, there will be a total lunar eclipse. The full Moon of April 14-15 will turn as red as the Red Planet itself.



Try to get your taxes done, so you can enjoy the show. Working on write-offs (to join you)...



NASA: The Opposition of Mars

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Robot Dawn...

Source: The Economist (link below)

ROBOTS came into the world as a literary device whereby the writers and film-makers of the early 20th century could explore their hopes and fears about technology, as the era of the automobile, telephone and aeroplane picked up its reckless jazz-age speed. From Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” and Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot” to “WALL-E” and the “Terminator” films, and in countless iterations in between, they have succeeded admirably in their task.



Since moving from the page and screen to real life, robots have been a mild disappointment. They do some things that humans cannot do themselves, like exploring Mars, and a host of things people do not much want to do, like dealing with unexploded bombs or vacuuming floors (there are around 10m robot vacuum cleaners wandering the carpets of the world). And they are very useful in bits of manufacturing. But reliable robots—especially ones required to work beyond the safety cages of a factory floor—have proved hard to make, and robots are still pretty stupid. So although they fascinate people, they have not yet made much of a mark on the world.



That seems about to change. The exponential growth in the power of silicon chips, digital sensors and high-bandwidth communications improves robots just as it improves all sorts of other products. And, as our special report this week explains, three other factors are at play.



One is that robotics R&D is getting easier. New shared standards make good ideas easily portable from one robot platform to another. And accumulated know-how means that building such platforms is getting a lot cheaper. A robot like Rethink Robotics’s Baxter, with two arms and a remarkably easy, intuitive programming interface, would have been barely conceivable ten years ago. Now you can buy one for $25,000.



The Economist: New roles for technology - Rise of the Robots
MIT Technology Review:
Cheaper Joints and Digits Bring the Robot Revolution Closer

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